It’s not enough to make sure your education and job-training benefits are available to employees of all ages, ethnic groups and pay levels.

Your company also has to make sure the training itself gives everyone the same chance for success upon its completion. If not, you can be held liable for discrimination.

Gender bias claim upheld

In one case, a Texas-based restaurant industry employer was cited by the EEOC for disproportionately hiring and promoting women from its bartender training program.

Believing that women would sell more drinks than men, Razzoo’s policy was to hire eight women for every two males, even when male trainees outperformed some of their female counterparts in training.

The company had to pay $1 million to resolve the discrimination case.

Struggling trainee claims age bias

In another  case (Cross v. New York Transit Authority), an employee who performed poorly in a cross-training program convinced a court the program was biased against older employees.

After a few sessions, the training supervisor sent the woman back to her regular department.
He said the trainee couldn’t keep up with the most basic of assignments, so there was no point moving on to tougher tasks.

Because the employee didn’t complete the training program, she wasn’t paid for the time away from her usual position. So she sued for age discrimination.

In her suit, the employee admitted she had trouble with the work assigned in the training program.
But she claimed the supervisor set her up to fail. As proof, she pointed out the fact the other, younger trainees got to work on better equipment.

And the others received training manuals – she didn’t.

Finally, she said the training supervisor was supportive of other trainees and allowed them to learn at their own pace. But she was ridiculed when she made the same mistakes.

The court agreed with the employee. In his decision, the judge ruled the training program was discriminatory. The judge said it was possible the older employee simply wasn’t cut out for the work. But the supervisor didn’t give her a fair chance to prove herself.

If your firm has similar programs, remind supervisors it’s crucial to:

• make it results-oriented but provide all trainees with the same training materials and review process, and
• offer people guidance if they find the work confusing at the beginning.